Watching Cody Miller bring home a bronze in the men’s 100m breaststroke at the Rio Olympics this week has brought back some memories of summer swim league.
Miller has received a lot of press coverage about swimming with a chest deformity called “pectus excavatum“. He was diagnosed early and was told swimming would be a good way to keep his lungs and heart healthy. He has some photos about his story here.
My son, Connor, also has pectus excavatum (PE). When he swam competitively in summer swim league from 2011-2012 (age 12-13), he was very self-conscious of his sunken chest and extremely tall and lean body. He enjoyed swimming, was good at quick races like 50m or 100m, but didn’t have the stamina to do well at 400m. When the time came to commit to year-round swim team, he decided to stop swimming competitively.
We were somewhat disappointed, envisioning him as the next Michael Phelps, but respected his decision.
Connor’s PE first showed up around age 3, but our pediatrician never made it into any big deal (even during the two years of summer swim) until around age 16, when he looked at PE as well as other physical traits to send Connor to the Kleberg Genetics Clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital to have an initial evaluation for possible Marfan Syndrome.
After a physical examination, the specialist determined that Connor didn’t have enough physical markers for Marfan Syndrome (he needed just 1 more) and sent him for genetic testing. When those results came back, it showed that he didn’t have Marfan Syndrome or related disorders (based on the gene markers currently tested). He was tentatively diagnosed with “unspecified connective tissue disorder.”
Next week, my daughter goes for her turn at the Genetics Clinic. She also has PE, as well as other physical characteristics similar to her brother. We’ll see what she gets diagnosed with.
The moral of this story is – ask questions of your doctors, get answers, help your kids.
